* urban design | Productive Urban Landscapes

A garden day in the Community Garden Bad Düben (source: Torsten Reinsch www 2018)

Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen joins Platform Productive Urban Green

Last week, Katrin Bohn met the German writer, journalist and activist Dr. Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen in Berlin, Germany. Together with Beatrice Walthall from the Working Group City & Food [AG Stadt & Ernährung], they discussed Elisabeth’s involvement in the project Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün [Platform Productive Urban Green]. Elisabeth Meyer-Renschhausen is one of Germany’s leading experts in…

Aerial view of Letchworth Garten City (source: Letchworth Garden City Heritage Foundation www 2019)

Bohn and Viljoen are working with the world’s first Garden City

‘Letchworth Garden City is the world’s first Garden City, created as a solution to the squalor and poverty of urban life in Britain in the late 19th Century. Based on the ideas of Ebenezer Howard as published in his book of 1898 Tomorrow: A Peaceful Path to Reform Letchworth Garden City inspired town planning across…

Madeira Terrace in historic pictures (source: Brighton Museums www 2019)

Madeira Terrace in Brighton in need of restoration

Abigail Hone, project manager at Brighton & Hove City Council’s City Development & Regeneration Department, organised a meeting with Katrin Bohn and Dong Chu about the restoration of Madeira Terrace in Brighton. The Council is looking for a design and engineering team to work on the restoration project starting this year on the first three…

Presentation of the results of one of the discussion tables by an urban gardener (source: Beatrice Walthall 2019)

First public presentation of the Platform Productive Urban Green

More than 30 people came to the first public presentation of “Platform Productive Urban Green – Design and planning of open green space” [Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün – Gestaltung und Planung des öffentlichen Grüns] which happened last week in Berlin’s Alte Zollgarage. After a brief welcome by a representative of Berlin’s (Germany) Senate Department for the…

Berries Feast and music come together in a neighbourhood event. (source: Spiel/Feld Marzahn www 2019)

INVITE: Berries Feast at Spiel/Feld Marzahn, Germany

It is already the 4th year that the community gardeners at Spiel/Feld Marzahn celebrate their traditional Beerenfest [Berries Feast] at the same time as the Berlin-wide Fête de la Musique. Gardeners, neighbours and friends are invited to an afternoon and evening of music (instruments and singing welcome!) at the Großes Beet [Big Bed] led by…

The new Platform Productive Urban Green and its 1st key component, the website “Community Gardens”, are embedded into Berlin’s political, activists and administrative processes. (source: AG Stadt & Ernährung 2019)

Platform Productive Urban Green holds its 2nd participatory workshop, Germany

After its successful first stakeholder workshop towards the end of March, the Working Group City & Food [AG Stadt & Ernährung] invited a selected group of Berlin-based community gardeners to the 2nd workshop in this participatory process. Aim of this meeting was to present and discuss the current developments of the Platform Productive Urban Green,…

Poster advertising the 9th international conference of the AESOP Sustainable Food Planning Group (source: AESOP SFPG www 2019)

Congratulations on the acceptance to AESOP Sustainable Food Planning 2019

Congratulations to Dong Chu and Katrin Bohn for the acceptance of their paper abstract for the 9th AESOP Sustainable Food Planning international conference! This conference on Agroecological transitions confronting climate breakdown: Food planning for the post-carbon city will be hosted by GIAU+s and the Department of Urban and Regional Planning at the Universidad Politecnica de Madrid (Spain) on the 7-8 November 2019. Dong and Katrin’s…

INVITE: A Productive Urban Green platform for Berlin, Germany

Today, the Working Group City & Food [AG Stadt & Ernährung], on behalf of Berlin’s (Germany) Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection [Senatsverwaltung für Umwelt, Verkehr und Klimaschutz], sent out an invitation to Berlin-based community gardeners to the first public presentation of “Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün“ – Gestaltung und Planung des öffentlichen Grüns…

Andernach’s new EdiCitNet food growing site is being prepared. (image: City of Andernach 2019)

EdiCitNet working meeting in Germany’s first Edible City

EdiCitNet, the H2020 European innovation action project Katrin Bohn and André Viljoen are involved in, held a 4-day working meeting in Andernach, Germany’s first Edible City and partner in the project. Consortium members from 8 international cities as well as specialists met to present, discuss and develop ideas of how to integrate urban agriculture and…

(Spatial) opportunity map for London's Eastern expansion zone, the Thames Gateway (source: Bohn&Viljoen 2004)

Knowledge on opportunity and food mapping to be shared internationally

Katrin Bohn has prepared two short lectures to be shown to an international audience of city planners, urban food practitioners and food and water researchers early next month. The lectures use knowledge gathered by Bohn&Viljoen over a number of years through their practice-based CPUL design research and condense it into bite-sized information indented to trigger…

INVITE: Start of the gardening season at Spiel/Feld Marzahn

The first seeds are already in the ground in the “big bed” at the Spiel/Feld community garden in Berlin’s northernmost borough of Marzahn-Hellersdorf. And in two days happens the community association’s first Spring meeting. Please be invited to the gardeners’ meeting of Spiel/Feld Marzahn e.V. this Wednesday, 10th of April 2019, at 4pm. We want…

The Urban Agriculture Park borders several local (urban) neighbourhoods and consists of a patchwork of different fields owned and used by a multitude of stakeholders. (source: Bohn& Viljoen and IBA Heidelberg 2016)

Urban Agriculture Park Heidelberg: Council approves planning order

Good news! On the 28th March, Heidelberg’s City Council approached a review and planning order for the further joint development, with IBA Heidelberg, of the idea for an Urban Agriculture Park [Landwirtschaftspark] to the southwest of the city centre. In cooperation with the International Building Exhibition (IBA) and with the participation of the citizens, the…

Participants discuss the potential use and usefulness of the new platform in several break-out sessions. (source: ScholzConstructors 2019)

“Platform Productive Urban Green” starts in Berlin

Thursday, 28th March 2019, marked the official beginning of Berlin’s new Platform Productive Urban Green [Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün]. This new website and communication format aims to engage the public and city officials in discussing the future of the capital’s open (green) urban spaces by focussing on distinct spatial typologies. The first of those is dedicated…

The data to be used in the map function of Platform Productive Urban Green - Community Gardens comes from four main sources. (source: AG Stadt & Ernährung 2019)

Plattform Produktives Stadtgrün meets Berlin’s community gardening activists

Yesterday, the AG Stadt & Ernährung discussed their initial ideas for a new online platform about Berlin’s productive urban green spaces with some of the city’s community gardening activists. Since having been commissioned towards the end of 2018 by the Berlin Senate Department for the Environment, Transport and Climate Protection [Senatsverwaltung für Umwelt, Verkehr und…